GRIN founders blame Square Enix for the studio’s demise

The founders of GRIN are blaming Square Enix for a significant portion of the events leading up to the studio’s bankruptcy in 2009 and subsequent closure.

Speaking in an interview with Aftonbladet, Ulf and Bo Andersson said Square not only made ridiculous demands of the firm, but it also reneged on $20 million contract for the firm’s Final Fantasy spin-off game, codenamed Fortress. Square also insisted, according to the Anderssons, that the firm fax it the game’s code and music files.

“It is as silly as it sounds,” said Bo Andersson. “It is an impossible requirement, you can not send ASCII or binary codes on the fax. It is backward. Really retarded. It was almost a criminal activity.”

According to the developers, Square also claimed the firm was not delivering its work to the correct departments. It should have, instead, been sending all its work to Square’s legal division, and furthermore insisted it didn’t like the game’s Nordic style, which it specifically requested from the beginning and was one of the main reasons it chose a Swedish firm in the first place.

So, to test the waters at Square a bit, and to see if it was even paying attention, GRIN sent it some concept art from taken straight from Final Fantasy XII .

The Anderssons were told: “It does not look like Final Fantasy.”

“Then we realized that whatever we do … they have decided,” Bo Andersson said. “We wanted to come in and revolutionize Final Fantasy, which is exactly what they need. The latest version sucks of course.”

We’ve mailed Square to see if it has any response to these rather harsh allegations.